MRS Metal Fabrication, Inc.

City Slicker Farms is a non-profit dedicated to increasing food self-sufficiency in Oakland by creating organic, sustainable, high-yield urban farms and back-yard gardens. The Center Street Farm located at Center and 16th street is home to the weekly Farm Stand where locally grown produce is distributed to community members at sliding scale prices. City Slicker Farms also teaches Oakland residents growing methods that can be used to avoid lead contamination from the soil, such as raised beds and vertical growing with PVC pipes.

City Slicker Farms supports six community gardens throughout Oakland, so their budget gets stretched thin providing essential maintenance at each site and funds are not always available to undertake special projects. MRS is leveraging its resources to build an ornamental metal fence and decorative iron walkway gates at the Center Street Farm. We are applying for an “Arts in Action” grant from Oaklandish and will be hosting an informal fundraising party. Please let us know if you have other ideas for sources of funding! The fence and gates will not only protect the Center Street farm, but will also bring public participatory art to the community.

The ornamental iron gates will be located at the south side of the garden on 16th Street. All metalwork will incorporate hand-forged decorative organic elements (vegetables, butterflies, vines, etc.) to reflect the prosperity of the garden and the fruits of the community’s labor. Local resident volunteers will take part in selecting these decorative features and their initials will be engraved in individual elements. The main gate will feature a historic, native oak tree to symbolize the strength and roots of Oakland communities.

We’ll keep you posted on our progress to raise money for the Center Street Farm project!

When deliberating names for our company, we settled on “MRS”, the initials of our first names, because it alluded to the business being majority women-owned. Sean knew that going into business with two women guaranteed him reliable partners, so he embraced his new title as “Mr. Mrs. Metal Fab”.

We wanted to get certified as a Women-owned business at the end of 2007, but the California Contractors State License Board (CSLB) required the licensed contractor (in our case, Sean) to “maintain ownership of shares evidencing at least 51% of the corporation” in order to reissue his individual license number to the corporation. We took this to mean he must always own 51% of the company- it didn’t occur to us at the time that the word “maintain” is obviously very vague… and could be open to interpretation? When we finally spoke with the CSLB in June 2008 they explained this requirement pertained only to the ownership structure at the time of transfer!

So here we are nearing the end of 2008. After a redistribution of shares, we are back to our original intent of being equal owners and MRS Metal Fabrication, Inc. is thus majority women owned! Despite Jennifer Beals (Flashdance) inspiring many women to take up welding as an artistic hobby, there are very few women employed at actual ironworks let alone owners. Therefore, we recognize that getting certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) as a Women-owned Business Enterprise (WBE) is potentially a great market niche for MRS.

The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) is the nation’s leading advocate of women-owned businesses as suppliers to US corporations. It also is the largest certifier of businesses owned and operated by women. Because many corporations and government agencies are required to award a fair share of work to minority business enterprises (MBE’s) and women’s business enterprises (WBE’s), achieving certification should help MRS win contracts as the ornamental metal sub-contractor for larger construction firms.

We’ve been working on the very lengthy application and will submit it the end of this month. Rachael and I are also going for the first time to a meeting for the Oakland chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction. We’ll let you know how it all goes!

Molly

PS: Here’s a pic of Rachael on Halloween!